Dancing contact improvisation for more than 32 years and teaching this form for the last 29 years, I sometimes ask myself why I still find an interest in it. In trying to find an answer to this question I keep coming back to what I see as the fundamentals of contact improvisation.

It is an improvisational dance form and it is a dance you can’t do by yourself.

You need a partner to be in contact with.

Curiosity and playfulness seem helpful.

Sensitivity and listening skills are essential.

Above all I realize that the practice of contact improvisation can be a life-long study.

Adding layer upon layer of embodied experiences of past dances. Redefining what I seem to know. You can learn the principles of contact improvisation in one week. From there you can start to study the form, which might take the rest of your life.

This intensive is dedicated to what I perceive as the fundamentals of contact improvisation. Some of the work we will do goes all the way back to my first exposure to this form in a workshop with Nancy Stark Smith in Amsterdam in 1981. Other parts of the work are rooted in my own journey of dancing and teaching contact improvisation ever since that first exposure.

To me an experienced contact improviser is someone who is skilful and interested to dance with people from various backgrounds and levels of experience. This workshop is open for all levels of experience.

BENNO VOORHAM

...is an international performer, choreographer and teacher from Holland, living in Stockholm since 1995. Since his graduation in 1986 from the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam he has worked internationally as an independent dance-artist, directing his own work as well as collaborating with others in both set and improvised pieces. Together with Sybrig Dokter he started LAVA-Dansproduktion, an international operating association for dance, based in Stockholm. In recent years he has choreographed several works for children and youth. He is an acclaimed international teacher of Contact Improvisation and Compositional Improvisation. In both his teaching and performance work, he is interested in exploring the creative and narrative potentials of the human body. Currently he is working on the project “Waiting in the Margins” with actors and dancers from Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine and children that live in refugee camps inside Georgia.

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KONTAKTI PÕHIALUSED

Olen tantsinud kontaktimprovisatsiooni üle 32 aasta ja õpetanud seda vormi viimased 29 aastat. Siiski küsin ma vahest: miks see mulle endiselt huvi pakub?

Püüdes leida vastust jõuan ikka tagasi kontakimprovisatsiooni põhiolemuse juurde.

See on improvisatsiooniline tantsuvorm, see on tants, mida ei saa tantsida üksinda. Vaja on partnerit, kellega olla kontaktis. Uudishimu ja mängulisus tulevad kasuks. Tundlikkus ja kuulamisoskus kuulvad põhisõnavarasse.

Olen mõistnud, et kontaktimprovisatsiooni praktiseerimine on elukestev õpe.

Kiht kihi haaval lisandub uut kehalist kogemust, pidevalt sõnastastuvad ümber senised teadmised. Kontaktimprovisatsiooni põhimõtted saavad selgeks ühe nädalaga, sealt edasi avaneb tee, millel käimine võib võtta kogu su ülejäänud elu.

Notafe töötuba on sellest, kuidas ma tajun kontaktimprovisatsiooni põhiolemust. Üks osa tööst, mida me praktiseerime, on pärit ajast, mil ma Nancy Stark Smithi töötoas (Amsterdam 1981) esimest korda selle tantsuvormiga kokku puutusin. Teine osa tööst on avanenud minu enda teekonnal - tantsides ja õpetades kontaktimprovisatsiooni.

Minu jaoks on kogenud kontakttantsija keegi, kes on oskuslik ning huvitatud tantsimisest partneritega, kellel on erinev taust ja kogemus. Töötuba on avatud kõigile huvilistele.

LOE LISA KONTAKTIMPROVISATSIOONIST